A few days ago, Microsoft released the long-awaited Windows Phone 7.8 update for all those users who will be stuck on Windows Phone 7 forever because there's no upgrade path to Windows Phone 8 other than buying a new phone. Now that it's here, what, exactly, does WP7.8 to the table?

Funny there hasn't been more coverage on this. I almost forgot what Microsoft did to their WP7 users. Android gets so much bad press from fragmentation, but at least there are reasons for that.(custom skins, varied phone specs, manufacturers/carriers in charge of updates, ect)

But really Microsoft isn't really obligated to push major releases to old devices. You don't get a free upgrade on the desktop version of Windows, why it is expected on mobile? My only guess is that we kept hearing how much better Microsoft's update strategy was.

There are a lot of technical issues that would stop anyone from wanting to upgrade. It's the same as the issues with upgrading Galaxy S to 4.0 and inability for Nexus One type devices to get a 4.0 at all.

At the time of development some assumptions were made, that did not have any grounds in reality. For Android and WP7 it's the unified storage space(iPhone had it from the beginning). You would have to go through a very error prone and dangerous procedure that requires expert level knowledge to upgrade SGS and any WP7 device(not to mention the requirements to upgrade Nexus One type device)

In short blame here is for short-sighted approach to creating future proof requirements for devices, not malice or inability to execute.